


Refraction

by PinkFlavor



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Creative License, M/M, Memory Alteration, Mild Psychological Horror Elements, Mind Manipulation, Not Beta Read
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:00:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25833160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PinkFlavor/pseuds/PinkFlavor
Summary: Being a salary man in an accounting firm shouldn't be nearly this chaotic, but Kisuke is slowly losing a hold of what is real.
Relationships: Kurosaki Ichigo/Urahara Kisuke
Comments: 1
Kudos: 19





	1. Knocking on the Glass

**Author's Note:**

> Just something I felt like writing up on a whim to maybe get back into the swing of things.

The tap of a metal can on the desktop is enough to startle Kisuke awake, louder than a shot to shake off the fragments of his dreams.

A late night at the office is nothing new, so he doesn't think much to wake up at his desk. His mouth tastes stale and his back aches from leaning over all night to sleep, but it's not even the first time this week it's happened.

His boss stands beside his desk, eyeing him with a disapproving frown which mars her normally pleasant features. Aizen is polite, perfectly mannered, and efficient at her role as the head of their department. Seldom is a penny misplaced that is not found, like seldom is their a hair out of place on her head. He'd think she was too put together if she had no flaws otherwise. 

"Urahara-san, you do know that most people go home at the end of the day." Even her reprimand is mild.

Kisuke smiles, weakly, too scattered to really protest. Wary of what he might say so early, so he turns to look at the can of coffee on the desk rather than to think too hard on why Aizen always manages to rub him the wrong way. Somehow too close, too watchful - always. 

"Thank you." 

Aizen only sighed for the perfunctory gratitude, hand settled onto her hip the posture of a pending lecture that Kisuke was all too familiar with.

But then the deafening roar that shook the very walls drew his attention. Kisuke had started to his feet without even realizing, hair on end at the sound of something dangerous. Breath held and poised. Only to jerk in place at the loud sound of shattering glass as the office windows out to the streets splintered and spidered.

Unconcerned, Aizen wandered closer to it with a smile on her face.

"It would appear they got here faster than anticipated."

Too stunned to ask Kisuke stayed put, arm raised to protect himself when the window burst inwards, but not before he had seen the reflection in the glass of a man almost identical to Aizen herself. 

Frozen he can only watch as Aizen seemed to transform before is eyes from the mild, too attentive manager into a cold, sly woman. Expression bored even amid such chaos. Enough to keep him in place to offer no assistance and to fear putting his back to her to flee. 

There is a whisper in a woman's voice to run to fight another day. 

Another roar makes the air vibrate around them. Physical force to it somehow that makes the shards of glass scatter further over the floor and desks. 

"Don't worry, out game isn't over yet Kisuke Urahara." Aizen almost coos at him, voice dripping with condescension. 

"What do you -" 

Kisuke can get out nothing further as the world fractures along the seams in the air he couldn't see previously, breaking down. Then there is nothing.

* * *

The tap of a metal can on the desktop is enough to startle Kisuke awake, louder than a shot to shake off the fragments of his dreams.


	2. Tempest in a Teacup

"Urahara-san," says the annoying saccharine voice of Luppi, "the copier is acting up again."

After forcing himself to count to ten does he turn away from the report he hasn't made nearly enough progress on to regard the current pain in the ass of the day. This is the forth time today he's heard this exact same complaint. Likely there will be a simple solution as has been the case thus far. Can closing a paper tray truly be so difficult?

"Perhaps you should request help from someone like Schiffer? I believe is supposed to be the in house IT support for the department." It's as diplomatic as he can manage to get out with is current level of irritation. Somehow it's difficult to repress the urge to punch the whining pest. "I would start but submitting a ticket as it seems to be a recurring issue, best to leave it to the best trained."

Kisuke doesn't know what to think of the vivid calculation his mind goes through in tracking as Luppi approaches his station to determine the force needed to slam his head onto the table. Or that his eyes catch the glint of a letter opener that while dull would be a possible ill-advised weapon in a pinch. 

He has these thoughts sometimes. Violent things. Yet somehow where he would think they should be purely emotional they are almost mathematical instead. The force needed to break a bone, the angle of limb before it should be an impairment on overall function. Or on a very trying day the amount of toner needed in a coffee mug to kill a man. Somehow a part of him seems to know these things, or estimate a fair approximation.

It bothers him when he can spare the time.

Luppi only drapes himself, dramatically, over the chair beside him station rather than to address the issue he feels the need to complain about. To complain more apparently.

"But it will take forever if I do it that way. He never closes anything up as resolved unless he's got an answer to everything."

Kisuke meaningfully turns back to his work, planning to ignore the other. He's far more determined to leave on time, or at a reasonable hour tonight instead of being here crunching numbers until it's nearly eleven. Again. It never seems to work in his favor though no matter how many times Starkk tells him to just go home and leave it for tomorrow. Somehow it feels wrong to leave it undone.

Aizen has never complained about the late hours he works, and she is the head of the office. Strange as Kyouko may be, she is capable and runs the department efficiently. 

Yet somehow he can never seem to shake the feeling she is always watching. Looming just out of sight and waiting for the right moment.

Only leaning closer Luppi scowls, or sulks. "Urahara-san, please can't you fix it just one more time?"

If he were to step on the other's foot and brace the knee with his leg it would very easy to use gravity to help slam that smarmy face into the tabletop with enough force to kill him. Simple, even. 

"Pl-lease~?" 

Something in his expression must shift when he turns because Luppi stops short, ever present smile on his face gone. Kisuke holds his breath and counts before he gives into that impulse that has only grown the longer that the junior accountant has lingered. He wonders if his face matches his thoughts for once because that might be fear be can see there in those beady little eyes.

Back to work Kisuke goes, seeing in his peripheral vision the way he is finally left in blessed peace.

It's soft but he hears the muttered, "Scary."

Some of the tension leaves him in a long exhale that makes him almost lightheaded. 

It's probably frowned upon to murder his coworkers, best to avoid the urge then. No matter how difficult they are determined to make it.


	3. Ghost Rule

Sleep is something he knows he gets too little of. It is difficult to sleep through the sounds of his neighbors through the walls of his apartment. This morning it's another fight he can overhear that prompts him to roll over. 

Like a switch has been flipped his mind is already too active to return to sleep.

A little flailing to grab his phone reveals it is just after five in the morning. The numbers mock him because today is Saturday and a rare occasion when he could sleep in. Thankfully he's too tired to really consider the adolescent urge to toss the phone as if it were responsible for the current hour. 

On the bed, across the rumbled bedcovers and stretching up toward his pillow is a patch of light coming in through the window between the curtains. The light is a bright, almost day-glow shade of orange. Yet he can't help but to stare at it. Somehow the color is lovely against the drab gray color of the bedding. Before he realizes it his hand comes to rest in the light, casting a shadow beneath his hand before it fists it in the material. 

For a moment it's peaceful. His fatigue is forgotten. The shouting of the neighbors has faded off to nothing.

Only a stillness in the morning. A rare reprieve from the real world.

There is something about that color. Kisuke can't recall any reason he would feel so strongly about something so simple. Nor does he really favor orange, in any shade.

But buried in his chest something feels looser. Slackened enough it is almost like he can breathe for the first time in an insurmountable time. 

Yet he is only here in his bedroom. The same four walls he has stared at each morning and on sleepless nights for -

A sharp pain in his head makes him wince and curl up with a groan. One hand still fisted in his bedding the other over his face, heel of his palm digging against his forehead trying to ease the linger ache. 

Like the violent thoughts he has at times, there are other things. When he thinks too hard about time this happens. Kisuke has no idea how old he is. No clue how long he's had his job at the firm. Or how long he's lived in this apartment that does not feel like home. Time is a concept that is eternal, boundless, to him. It's concerning in many respects. If only he could think about it beyond surface thoughts without literal pain.

By now he has inspected himself for signs of an accident. He has a fair number of scars over his body he has no explanation for. His hands are calloused from heavy work and scratched up from something laborious. There is a long one nearly the length of his torso, hip to mid-chest. Smattering of smaller ones across the rest of him. His life is panned out in these imperfections.

And he can't remember a single one of them.

Grip on his bedcovers tightening he keeps it up until his hand and knuckles ache under the pressure. It helps to distract from the ache in his head.

Without significant memories are you still yourself? What makes a person who they are? When have they turned into an entirely different person?

Kisuke spends his sleepless night thinking in circles like these. Forcing himself ultimately to accept that who he was matters little opposed to who he is now. The future will always matter more than the past. Or he is only offering himself hollow reassurances.

Or perhaps his pride refuses to allow him to languish and accept that this is simply how it is. Will always be. 

But it's a pointless train of thought to worry himself, he reasons before he dives too far down.

Curling a bit further into himself his head rests besides clenched hand, just shy of the sunlight. Up close the light glows, the orange a little more brilliant. Or his imagination is at work. With way it is pleasant and he can slowly feel the ache in his head recede and thus himself to relax into his bed. 

Something soft and faded in his memory settles overhead, a phantom. Gossamer as spider silk. Developing the longer he keeps still, breathing steadily in the calm that has returned to him. The outline defining itself by the time his near death grip on the bedding has eased to splay loose against the gray cotton. The outline is of a person.

That fact startles him somehow.

He's far from social. He can be pleasant and make small talk with a skill that belies his absolute lack of interest. Can a group of his work peers really be called a social circle? Doubtful, of simply pathetic. 

Loneliness is not something he finds he experiences. Never when he is alone, working away in the firm there later than anyone else most nights struggling against a mountain of responsibilities. Overwhelming and suffocating at times - but he has no recollection of a feeling of isolation. The dark desks and halls are only silent around him. Nights spent staring up at ceiling or at the crack along the corner when sleep evades him also offer no loneliness. Being solitary is not a problem.

How can he have a phantom in his bed? Someone he suddenly wants to see that he has never met. Or cannot recall meeting.

But he can feel it - a new ache. Deeper than anything he's experienced thus far. Loneliness. Somewhere in his ribcage, slowly clenching around his stomach and squeezing the air out of his lungs. Filling up the spaces he hadn't noticed before like the rising high tide. 

Forcing in a breath, Kisuke hiccups around it. The tension in his chest making difficult to breathe, almost suffocating as his face grows hot.

That his vision has blurred and his eyes had begun to water reaches him when he can feel the wetness on his face. He's crying a distant part of his mind tells him. Crying over a person his mind conjured up from some half-formed thoughts. 

Words lodged in his throat, too thick to escape. Words that no one would even hear.

Who are you, he wants to ask no one. Are you nobody? Am I nobody too?

Tear continue to flow. Slowly and silently. Kisuke can feel his who face is overheated by now around his racing thoughts. A dam has broken and the water the had filled him before, swallowed him up in the tide, is receding. With the smell of salt and dust around him the world is calm around him, as though he is the opposing storm front.

Yet for some reason when he presses his face into the bedding he laughs. Eyes closed he can still see the light. Luminescence piercing his sight, even if he were to try and shut it out. Incapable of being ignored. Which is a comfort somehow, like something has been properly pinned into place. A pillar of the world itself righted.

How long he was overcome with the emotion he has no idea, but he feels drained when his eyes are dry once more. Kisuke is relieved even. Wrung out as he may also be.

The sunlight stretches further up the bed now and is now up over his pillow as well. 

In the distance he can hear something like the rumble of thunder. But he doesn't care. He finally feels like he can get some sleep so he uncurls to a more comfortable position, more a curve stretched over his bed. 

This is how he falls asleep, unbothered by the morning light.


End file.
